


The Scientific Method

by zarabithia



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: M/M, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sure that knowledge will go very far when I write my inevitable tell-all about the time Reed Richard's Sex Pollen caused me to have sex with Tony Stark."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scientific Method

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bagheera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/gifts).



It was a Tuesday, and aliens made them do it.

Okay, technically, that wasn't true. Technically, Reed Richards made them do it, but in Reed's defense, the spores had been an attempt to stop an alien invasion.

It was a terrible miscarriage of science, and one that Tony was sure that he would have a lot of fun mocking Reed for, at a later date. That was presuming that the rest of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were able to take care of the said alien threat, without the help of Iron Man and Ant-Man.

At some point, Tony was sure he would get back to caring about that.

But for now, he was far more interested in keeping them from falling off the lab table they'd claimed as a makeshift bed. Oh, and in discovering the particular erogenous zone just under Hank's left ear that made Hank bite down on his lip with such dedicated concentration.

It wasn't a particularly unique erogenous zone, of course. Perfectly ordinary, by Tony's account - and he'd certainly had plenty of non-Hank Pym"accounts" to judge that ordinariness by.

But the urgent little gasps that kept escaping through Hank's tightly clenched mouth with every movement of Tony's tongue were pretty extraordinary. They rather resembled the exasperated sighs that Hank was prone to during their arguments - their many, many arguments that would have been much more familiar in a laboratory setting than what they were currently doing.

Unlike Hank's usual exasperated sighs, however, the would-be moans were a declaration of contentedness. Which, part of Tony's non-affected-by-sex-pollen brain reminded him, had been a rare emotion by Hank since the whole Ultron _thing._

"You should just let _go_ , Hank. The world won't end "

Hank shifted his weight on the table and let out another one of those sighs. What followed was a series of mostly unintelligible mumblings that Tony could likely only understand because he was so close to Hank's mouth. "No, the world is going to end because we were too busy dry humping on a lab table to help out our teammates."

"If you'd quit practicing orgasm denial on your own self, we'd probably both be cured and be able to go help them."

"Then maybe you should do something more useful with your mouth than sucking off my ear."

Still a mumble, but it was one Tony heard loud and clear. It was also one that sounded like a terrific idea.

Which, really, just went to show how _strong_ Reed's sex pollen was.

* * *

As it turned out, the world didn't actually end.

"So good job, Avengers!" Tony announced as he entered the training room. He was greeted with several scowling faces, which was the sort of result one should expect when they've just turned off the training program.

Steve looked particularly disapproving, though T'Challa was giving Steve pretty decent competition in that department. Thor looked mildly intrigued at the disturbance and Hulk looked like he wanted to smash someone.

So nothing new, there, really.

"You can always turn the program back on after I leave," Tony pointed out.

"We were just beginning to work up a good sweat," Steve answered, and Tony looked at them, but neither his eyes nor his nose could detect any sweat at all, so maybe the definition of "working up a good sweat" was a bit different when you were a god, super soldier, a king gifted by magical panther powers, or a ... Hulk... than it was if you were a technical genius.

"And after yesterday, our team has proven that teamwork is not its best trait," T'Challa continued.

"Now is a good time to ask if I'm okay," Tony interrupted. "The world obviously didn't end, but Hank and I _were_ subjected to Reed Richards' terrible efforts at science."

"On Asgard, our warriors waited until the battle was over before having celebratory sexual relations. Even Loki, wayward as he can be, honored that tradition," Thor announced, and it wasn't Tony's fault that the hammer swung in just the right fashion against Thor's palm to give Tony mental images that he wasn't previously aware he wanted to have.

He chalked that up to being Reed's fault, too.

"Okay, first? Reed's sex spray was not our fault. Secondly, I am perfectly willing to bet that Loki was sneaking off to have all sorts of 'relations' and you didn't notice."

Thor gave Tony an incredibly smug look. "I can attest with great certainty to all of Loki's sexual exploits prior to him becoming our foe."

That sounded incredibly strange to Tony's ears and he couldn't quite place it, until Hulk proclaimed, "Hulk doesn't want tales of freaky god incest."

"Hulk isn't the only one," T'Challa proclaimed, and Tony was just beginning to have a lot of sympathy for the 1940s guy in the room, when Steve simply shook his head and held up a hand to silence his teammates.

That was a neat trick. Tony was going to have to learn that trick. It would go well with the whole "leading the team" thing he was supposed to be doing.

"Are you alright, Tony?" Steve asked, and his face was full of concern. "Hank stopped by earlier and said he was fine, so we assumed you were, too."

"As it turns out, no. The spray is still in my system, so if you could just tell me where Hank went..."

Tony knew fully that the sight of Steve Rogers biting his lip was a harbinger of bad things to come, but he still wasn't braced for what Steve said next. "He's having lunch with Jan."

"Oh."

Tony turned the training simulation back on silently as he left.

* * *

It was maybe the shortest lunch in the history of the universe.

Tony would feel badly about that, at another date. Really he would. Because he was sure that this would come up in some future conversation with either Pepper or Rhodey, and they would both be horrified that _Captain America_ had felt so guilty about Tony's impending need to mate or die that Captain America had actually called Hank and intervened on Tony's behalf.

Maybe Tony would be horrified, too, but right now, Hank was doing his best to prove that intercrural sex was the absolute best choice, and Tony could never be horrified at the man's skill.

He was kind of the opposite of horrified, really. A sentiment he waited to express until after Hank's skills had resulted in them both collapsing somewhat wobbily onto the floor beside Tony's desk.

"It could have been worse," Tony proclaimed.

Hank turned to look at him, and only belatedly did Tony realize what that must have sounded like aloud. "I meant Reed's experiment. Sure, it's cutting into your dates with Jan, but at least none of us look like giant rock monsters. Considering his last science failure, that was always a possibility, right?"

"Every scientist has their failures, Tony."

"If you are thinking about angsting about Ultron again, please don't. I will give you another blow job if you promise not to."

Hank's glare was entirely unnecessary, in Tony's view. "What is that look for?"

"This is where I point out that sexual favors from you are hardly unique enough to be used as bribery, isn't it?" Hank answered as he started to put his clothes back on.

"Tsk, tsk, Hank. Shaming other people's healthy sexual activities is very _twentieth_ century of you. It really doesn't fit your whole over the top liberal attitude on life."

"You're saying it should be reserved for assholes like you, then?" was Hank's only retort, before he stormed out of Tony's office.

* * *

To Steve's credit, the first thing he said to Tony the next day was "Are you feeling better?"

"A little," Tony answered, because most of what he was feeling probably wasn't anything fit for a man of Steve's time period, and because most of what he was feeling wasn't appropriate chatter for breakfast. Or so Rhodey had mentioned, a time or two. "Sorry I haven't been all together here the past couple of days. I guess my leadership skills have been pretty shitty."

"It hasn't been your fault," Steve answered solemnly, and Tony would laughed at the polite way of saying "yes, your leadership _has_ sucked, thank you very much," but Steve looked like maybe someone had kicked a puppy, and since Tony hadn't been around for much of the past two days, for all he knew, maybe the Hulk had taken up a new, unfortunate past time.

But before Tony could continue that particular line of thought, Steve continued, "Dr. Richards' spores made you do things that you had no control over, Tony."

"Well, yes."

"Something you wouldn't have done normally."

The "of course not" got stuck somewhere between Tony's gut and his throat, so instead he shrugged. "So how _has_ the team been? I assume you took command while Hank and I were ... otherwise occupied?"

Steve suddenly looked very interested in the eggs he was cracking. Apparently, he didn't want to contemplate the meaning of "occupied" too thoroughly.

"Yes," Steve finally admitted. "The others didn't seem to mind following my command while you were ... occupied."

Tony could have pointed out that the team following Steve wasn't anything new. He could have pointed out that Barton and T'Challa followed Steve far more readily than they'd ever followed Tony. If he was the jealous type, he might have.

But instead of being jealous, he settled for mildly annoyed. "It's just _sex_ , Cap. The world will not actually explode if you say it out loud. I'm not Hawkeye. I know it existed during your time."

"That it did, soldier," Steve answered solemnly. "But in my time, we were not quite so ... out in public about it."

"I get the feeling that this has nothing to do with my situation with Hank."

"You still have a situation with Hank?" Steve's concern distracted him from his upcoming tirade against the sexual mores of the twenty-first century.

But Steve's battles against the twenty-first century were far more interesting than Tony's current issues, so Tony shook his head. "Finish what you were saying. Let me pretend to be a good and attentive leader today."

Steve frowned and looked like maybe he wanted to argue the point. He _did_ swallow his raw eggs - something that would never not be gross - and swallowed an extra time for good measure before he stated firmly, "In my day, sex was sex and a pearl necklace was a pearl necklace."

"Tell me you haven't been complementing anyone on their ... pearl necklaces."

The sigh that Steve gave Tony was all the answer he needed and Tony literally bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"Jan didn't seem to mind my slip of tongue, but -"

"Wait, you congratulated _Jan_ on her _pearl necklace_?"

The hesitation in Steve's made the situation all the more enjoyable and although Tony really tried, biting his cheek just wasn't enough any more.

* * *

Captain America's experiences with pearl necklaces aside, Tony absolutely intended on having a perfectly normal day. By perfectly normal day, he meant no having sex with Hank Pym on or near any lab tables or desks.

It was a pretty good goal, Tony was sure of it.

Then, of course, Hank Pym came into lab where Tony was trying to work and that really ruined all of Tony's plans.

"I wanted to begin by apologizing," Hank said as he sat his little container of ants down on his side of the lab. Technically, Hank had a lab of his own, but they'd made great things together once – before the Great Ultron Disagreement, and Tony had designed his lab with all the same materials that he knew Hank would need. Just in case Hank ever decided to stop being angry at him for having a practical view of how to use Ultron.

Which, okay, apparently hadn't been all that great of a view, all things considered.

"Sorry for what?" Tony watched as Hank paused to allow a string of ants to crawl into his hand. It was an act that made Tony shudder and want to reach up and wipe away the ants that _weren't_ crawling up his own arm.

But on the other hand, watching the way Hank dealt with his ants was kind of charming.

"I'm sorry for calling you an asshole," Hank clarified.

"I think it's safe to say that is the first time you've ever apologized for that," Tony answered. "Though it's certainly not the first time you've called me an asshole."

"But the other times were deserved," Hank clarified. "This time, I was ... taking out internal frustrations on you, and that wasn't fair. So I'm sorry."

"What kind of internal frustrations?"

"Don't ruin the moment, Tony."

"Fair enough. Will it ruin the moment to tell you that you were completely wrong and bribing you with blow jobs is absolutely something unique that I have never done before?"

Hank very carefully placed his ants down on the table and turned to look at Tony. "I don't actually believe you."

"Of course you don't. Your utter lack of ability to believe in me is a control by which all other variables are judged."

Ah, a smile. Tony considered that a score.

"I'll keep that in mind, Tony."

"You should, because it's very important. I'm a successful, rich, handsome guy. Mostly, the men – and women – go down on me. Not the other way around."

"I'm sure that knowledge will go very far when I write my inevitable tell all about the time Reed Richard's Sex Pollen caused me to have sex with Tony Stark."

"Are you kidding? Harry Potter will feel like the frustrated efforts of a freshman English major at a community college in comparison to what your book would sell. With a lead like that? You could fund entire research universities devoted exclusively to the study of ants." Tony waited a minute to take in the bright smile that the mere thought brought Hank, before he continued, "But speaking of Reed Richard's Sex Pollen, I believe I am currently under the effects. Y'know, still."

"Still? We should do a blood sample and check for - "

"No, no. That's not necessary. The urge to give you a blow job is pretty high right now, and as we've previously discussed, that is a sure side effect of Reed Richard's Sex Pollen."

"That is the worst reasoning I've ever heard. Even from you."

"Scientific Method, Hank. Come up with an improbable theory and try to prove it true."

"That's the worst definition of the Scientific Method that I've ever heard."

"And by worst, you clearly mean _the best._ "

"No, Tony. By the worst, I mean I've had still-drunk-from-fraternity-induction-ceremony freshmen give better definitions."

And really, Tony would have been insulted by the perceived strike at his scientific prowess, but at that moment, Hank was shrugging his costume off, and Tony's mind turned to the importance of a very different type of prowess altogether.

* * *

The following day, Hank seemed rather enamored with Bruce Banner's scientific prowess, and so, rather than point out that the man's own science had gotten him turned into an ugly, rageful green thing that used sentences which would have gotten him mocked by a playground full of pre-schoolers, Tony went off to get in some prime time training.

At least that was his plan, because Captain America was always up for a good training time, right?

Except, apparently, when the answer was "no, Captain America would rather be sketching Hawkeye during a workout routine."

Which was weird.

"So what did you say this time, Hawkeye?" Tony asked, as he sat down next to Cap.

"You know, same old, same old."

"Threatened to kick the Hulk's ass?"

"Yup."

"You know, Clint, some people might consider it a blow to their ego that the only way they can get the Hulk to laugh is to threaten to kick his ass."

"And yet, that's still more than you can do on the Banner front, Stark. So my ego is safe." With that, Hawkeye turned his considerable smirk back to the target and Tony wondered again why Steve was so determined to sketch the man.

"Your efforts are appreciated, soldier," Steve said, ignoring any of Tony's internal confusion, which was fair, with him not being a telepath and all. "When Hulk goes too long without being Banner for a while, he gets a little ... "

"Bitchy?" Clint offered. "Yeah, I noticed. Man nearly threw me through the wall for eating his Cheez-Its that he had hidden behind the Hamburger Helper boxes."

"Hey, those were _my_ Cheez-Its," Tony protested.

"All the stranger that he freaked out about me eating them, then," Clint answered.

Tony gave his backside a good glare before asking Cap, "Do you know where everyone is? The mansion seems kind of empty today."

"Thor is having dinner with his lady friend," Steve answered. "T'Challa is engaged in a spirited debate over scientific ethics that I didn't really understand. I believe they've moved that conversation to the Fantastic Four's headquarters."

"And Jan's off having retail therapy," Clint interrupted, ignoring Tony's pointed glares. "Y'know, the kind of therapy a girl's bound to have when her soulmate's off fucking someone else."

"Soulmates?" Tony scoffed. "I can't believe the overgrown circus brat who couldn't tell what side of the fight his girlfriend was on is trying to give snarky commentary about _soulmates_."

"Yeah, at least I didn't have to pick my fruit off somebody else's tree," Clint answered blithely.

Several well-placed retorts were on the tip of Tony's tongue, but they died down where Steve put down his pencil and squeezed Tony's shoulder.

"I suppose you agree with him," Tony muttered. "About the whole Jan and Hank thing."

"I think that if you wanted advice about women ... you fished the wrong man out of the ocean that day. Bucky would have had a lot better advice," Steve answered, and his face got the same heartbroken look he always got when talking about Bucky.

"Wasn't Bucky twelve years old, or something?" Clint interrupted. "Because seriously, in the newsreels, he came up to about your knee."

"He was a little older ... and a little taller... than that," Steve said as he gave Tony's shoulder one last squeeze before picking up the pencil again. "But he was very young, which was part of my point, of just how unqualified I am to speak about such things."

"Well, I'm not going to buy Jan any pearl necklaces as an apology gift," Tony joked lightly.

"There's a disgusting mental image," Clint remarked, and Tony very pointedly ignored him.

"I .. ah, would hope you wouldn't," Steve agreed. "But you might want to try actually talking to Jan about things."

That was some astonishingly terrible advice, in Tony's view. But in fairness to Steve, he was still dealing with the 21st century. He'd get the hang of how people worked – and how they didn't – sooner or later.

Probably later.

* * *

Even if Tony had wanted to take Steve's terrible advice, he really couldn't have. Because Tony, along with the rest of the Avengers, spent the next week as kittens.

Tony really hated magic.

* * *

On the morning that Tony woke up as a human again, he did so in an alley, behind a dumpster, with his head nestled firmly against the scraps of what had once been either a blanket or a t-shirt in a former life.

Oh, and lying across from him was the woman he'd been avoiding.

"Hi, Jan. Are you alright?" Tony asked, because it was the leaderly thing to do, and because apparently running away from Captain America's advice was going to get him bitten on the ass.

Quite literally by a horde of fleas, if the itching was any indication.

Jan paused in her attempt to fix her hair to grimace at him. "I have a very strange taste in my mouth. I am hoping it isn't _mouse_ taste. Are you alright?"

"Other than having a mental image of eating _mice_ that I will never be able to scrub from my mind, I'm fine." Tony answered truthfully. Mostly because he also had a distinctly ... probable mouse-like taste lingering in his mouth.

"Good!" Jan replied cheerfully. "Call the rest of the Avengers and make sure they are also fine, and then I'll take you out to the best little hidden restaurant in all of New York to scrub the taste of mice out of both of our mouths."

Running away was a cowardly thing to do, and so, after checking on the rest of their team, Tony reluctantly agreed.

* * *

The sign in front of the restaurant promised specialization in "Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and American Cuisine," which didn't sound promising _at all._

But the cheeseburger they brought Tony was as big as Thor's forearm, so Tony stowed away any other complaints he might have had about the place.

Jan lifted her strawberry margarita into the air and swirled the ice for a minute before she began to speak. "You've been avoiding me. We need to discuss that before I start in on this drink. Considering the week we've had, I want to get started on that discussion _immediately._ "

"Really, I'm not sure this is the best place for - "

"Hank is a great guy," Jan interrupted, before Tony could continue with his very valid reasons about why they shouldn't discuss Reed Richard's Sex Pollen in a half-full restaurant. "A really, really great guy."

"Yeah, he is," Tony admitted, and he blamed the tiny flutter in his stomach at that confession on the mice that he'd probably spent the week eating. "And I know that the two of you are pretty close."

"Yeah, we've known each other for a while. Makes you pretty close," Jan answered, and she gave in for the urge to take a drink of her margarita before continuing. "And I won't lie, I've had very _lustful_ thoughts. _Very_ lustful, because Hank is not an ugly man."

"Okay, this is where I wish I had ordered a margarita, too, because this is where the conversation is about to take a turn towards the awkward," Tony said, and he took a drink of his Dr. Pepper instead.

Jan rolled her eyes and sat down her glass. "Only if you make it awkward."

"Trust me when I say that is the last thing I want to do," Tony said earnestly.

"Which is why you avoided me until we got turned into kittens?" Jan surmised, but she didn't wait for a confirmation or a denial. "It wasn't necessary, Tony. Hank and I are close enough to know that we want very different things."

"The same thing can be said about me and Hank," Tony pointed out, and he wasn't sure why he did so. But it was an important point. "Exhibit A: The Great Ultron Disagreement."

Jan rolled her eyes and picked up her sushi, dipping it in the side of guacamole. "There's a difference between the kind of wanting separate things in life that makes you challenge each other and the kind that makes you ... really look forward to spending time with different teammates."

Something in the way Jan bit into her sushi made Tony pause, and in that pause he realized that Jan wasn't talking about Hank _or_ Tony.

He had a sudden flash of Cap's conversation about pearls, and he wondered, but he didn't ask. Because he didn't want to make this awkward.

"So what you have to do," Jan continued while Tony wondered who on the Avengers team she was spending time with, "Is quit pretending that you are having sex with Hank because of some silly Reed Richard's mistake. In fact, you need to quit pretending that Hank is a mistake."

"I'm not -"

"That's good!" Jan interrupted. "Because if you end up hurting him, I _will_ sting you."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tony promised.

* * *

Tony had a lot of things on his mind, as it turned out, by the time that he saw Hank alone again. He was still working on how to express them when Hank looked up from his microscope and said, "I haven't seen you in a while. Did the week as kittens finally cure you of Reed Richard's Sex Pollen?"

"Yes. Well, no." Tony could swear that the ants next to the microscope were actually tilting their heads up in confusion at him, which was a good way to judge how much sense one was making. So he started over. "I was never really under Reed's sex pollen. Well, that first time I was! But not the rest of the times."

"Oh, so you finally admit it?"

"Wait, you knew?"

"Of course I did. You acted entirely different the first time, when you were actually under the effects, than you did the other two times," Hank explained. "I _am_ a scientist, Tony. It's my job to observe things."

"You could have told me that you noticed," Tony replied, and he felt perfectly comfortable with how indignant he sounded about the entire situation.

"You could have just told the truth about wanting in my pants," Hank replied.

Which, okay, was a fair point, so Tony didn't bother to argue it.

"So if you knew, why did you go along with it?" Tony asked instead, because it was a much more crucial line of questioning.

Hank just looked at him for a minute before he sighed. "Nobody was affected by Dr. Richard's spray, we both ... enjoyed ourselves... It should be pretty obvious, Tony."

"Hmm. We challenged each other pretty well, right?"

"I ... guess so. We could put it that way."

"Jan does. She thinks that's why we could work. You know ... long term."

Hank paused to consider that, and he took his time to survey Tony's face. Tony wondered if Hank thought this was something he would actually joke about, if he was really that much of an ass.

"We might kill each other instead," Hank said lightly.

It was an out, and this conversation was awkward enough that Tony thought about taking that out and grabbing hold for dear life.

But instead he said, "Yeah, but we're scientists. We can't be afraid of the unknown and scary, Hank."

"No," Hank agreed, and there was a smile smile tugging at his lips. "We have to rush forward, full speed."

"So, we should treat this like an experiment. A joint one. And no matter what happens, we can't mess it up as much as Reed messed up his," Tony said firmly.

The beat was exactly four deep breaths long. Tony counted them.

"Alright," Hank said finally, and Tony took an even deeper breath.

"Good. Glad that conversation is over. Want to have lunch to celebrate?"

"Not until I get this done," Hank answered. "Of course, I might get done faster if I have an extra set of hands."

"You want my help?"

Hank nodded towards the seat next to him. "I'd like that."

Tony sat down next to Hank, and it was really nice to be seated at the table again.


End file.
